Ole Mac is just having some fun with us (note smiley face). In all seriousness one can certainly make an argument that the use of GMO products with the resulting highly productive and weed free fields is hardly beneficial to bees. But it sure is good for the billions of
people on the planet that like eating.

05-18-2013, 09:06 AM

JStinson

Re: Monsanto GMO products contribute to ccd

Ah, got it. I was hoping for an impassioned, holier than thou response. Quite a disappointment.

:lookout:

05-18-2013, 09:25 AM

BigDawg

Re: Monsanto GMO products contribute to ccd

Contrary to popular belief, GMO's do NOT produce higher crop yields...

05-18-2013, 09:31 AM

mac

Re: Monsanto GMO products contribute to ccd

Quote:

Originally Posted by jim lyon

Ole Mac is just having some fun with us (note smiley face). In all seriousness one can certainly make an argument that the use of GMO products with the resulting highly productive and weed free fields is hardly beneficial to bees. But it sure is good for the billions of
people on the planet that like eating.

weed pollen and nectar for highly productive bees. I do believe bees help feed people and the court is still out on the health benefits of GMO crops. Time will tell

05-18-2013, 09:33 AM

mac

Re: Monsanto GMO products contribute to ccd

Quote:

Originally Posted by BigDawg

Contrary to popular belief, GMO's do NOT produce higher crop yields...

That is true in some instances crop yields are lower

05-18-2013, 09:36 AM

mac

Re: Monsanto GMO products contribute to ccd

Quote:

Originally Posted by JStinson

Ah, got it. I was hoping for an impassioned, holier than thou response. Quite a disappointment.

:lookout:

From me???? surely you jest. And ya don't have to call me Shirley.

05-18-2013, 10:21 AM

JRG13

Re: Monsanto GMO products contribute to ccd

I don't know if anyone says gmos boost yields, but it has more to do with the actual breeding line it's in anyways.

05-18-2013, 10:36 AM

jim lyon

Re: Monsanto GMO products contribute to ccd

Quote:

Originally Posted by mac

That is true in some instances crop yields are lower

True, sort of. Some "roundup ready" soybeans have little if any direct yield advantage. But indirectly there is a huge yield benefit as weeds, insects and drought all take a huge toll on yield and they are all problems that genetic modification addresses. I dont think you can make an effective dual argument that bees suffer because of a lack of "weed" forage yet those same weeds don't also rob yield from the crop. :lpf::gh:

05-18-2013, 10:37 AM

Barry

Re: Monsanto GMO products contribute to ccd

I should delete this thread. I'm not interested in promoting any corporate marches, pro or con, here. Do that on your own time and own website. But, since everyone is using :D mr. smiley, I'll assume this is all a big joke! :D :):lookout::lpf::banana::ws:

OK, you'll need to copy some of that article here so we can read it. Getting a page that requires me to sign up to WSJ doesn't work. I do like the subtitle: Campaigns by well-fed activists would impose the tastes of the rich on the hunger of the poor.

05-18-2013, 11:07 AM

Rader Sidetrack

Re: Monsanto GMO products contribute to ccd

> OK, you'll need to copy some of that article here so we can read it.

I'm not a paid WSJ subscriber. But here is a free summary of the piece:

Quote:

[Article Summarized by Meridian Institute] In this opinion piece, Robert Paarlberg, a professor of political science at Wellesley College, writes that campaigns by well-fed activists to require the labeling of foods containing genetically modified organisms (GMOs) will take important choices away from farmers and consumers in poor countries. If a mandatory labeling law was enacted in the U.S., says Paarlberg, America’s farmers could likely find an acceptable workaround, as much of the soy and corn grown in the U.S. is employed as feedstock for biofuels or as animal feed, neither of which requires a label. But, he argues, there would be a large downside in poor countries that are moving further along this path. Developing countries, he says, have significant unmet food needs, and GMO food crops could help. Golden rice, which contains vitamin A, could help those in Asia lacking this nutrient; in India, access to GMO eggplant would reduce the toxic exposure farmers and consumers get from pesticides; and, in East Africa, drought-resistant maize would help those farmers vulnerable to hunger and destitution when the rains don’t come. But, warns Paarlberg, “if America, through a labeling system, joins Europe in embracing a new norm against the cultivation of GMO crops for human food, governments in developing countries, already skittish thanks to activist campaigns, will likely follow suit. The result would be a needless setback for the world's poorest and hungriest people.”

Monsanto, Bayer and Syngenta produce the TOOLS farmers need to grow more corn and soybeans. But they do not create the public DEMAND for corn and soybeans. If anti-pesticide activists were sincerely interested in reducing sales of Monsanto et al products, they should have been working to reduce the public demand for corn and soybeans; i.e. they should have vigorously fought the Biofuels Mandate, vigorously promoted major reductions in auto size, weight and engine horsepower and supported reinstatement of the national 55 MPH speed limit. But they are not interested in doing any of that because there's far less money to be made promoting true conservation as compared to waging high profile "Occupy Monsanto" type campaigns. The activists like to claim they are not in it for the money, but their IRS tax returns show otherwise: http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/6818/wcsm.jpg

05-18-2013, 09:27 PM

WLC

Re: Monsanto GMO products contribute to ccd

I take it that you have a sportsman's license. :)

While modern agriculture almost certainly has an impact on pollinators, I think that it's exotic pathogens that are the root cause of CCD.

Why blame others for exotic viruses, and other pests and pathogens, that have reached us from the other side of the world?

I blame globilization!

05-18-2013, 09:45 PM

Ian

Re: Monsanto GMO products contribute to ccd

Quote:

Originally Posted by WLC

Why blame others for exotic viruses, and other pests and pathogens, that have reached us from the other side of the world?

because those others is what these others are trying to eliminate, using us beekeepers as the mule

05-18-2013, 09:50 PM

JStinson

Re: Monsanto GMO products contribute to ccd

Strange, that link didn't work for me either. I googled it and got to it that way.

The World Needs Genetically Modified Foods
By ROBERT PAARLBERG

The Whole Foods grocery chain recently announced its intent by 2018 to require labels on all foods with genetically engineered ingredients. This step was hailed as a game-changer by those campaigning to make such labels a federal requirement. Yet even without mandatory labeling, most genetically modified (or GMO) foods have already been driven out of our supermarkets.

People in wealthy countries can afford to live with this outcome. But in the long run, it will take important choices away from farmers and consumers in poor countries.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has long opposed the mandatory labeling of GMO foods because it agrees with a scientific consensus that these foods so far bring no new risks to human health or the environment. All of the leading national science academies in Europe have reached this conclusion. Three years ago, the Research Directorate of the European Union concluded that biotechnology, and in particular GMOs, "are not per se more risky than, for example, conventional plant breeding technologies."

Nonetheless, campaigns by activist groups such as Greenpeace have so scared consumers that most GMO food products have been kept out of the American marketplace.

A genetically modified wheat designed to reduce the cost of weed control was first field-tested in 1994, but in 2004 Monsanto MON +0.66% decided not to go ahead with sales of wheat seeds when it became clear that American and Canadian farmers feared consumer resistance and lost export sales in Europe and Asia.

GMO rice that can be grown with less pesticide spray has been field-tested in the U.S. since 1990—but, for similar reasons, never commercialized. GMO potatoes that resist beetle damage were grown successfully in the U.S. from 1999 to 2001, but their cultivation was voluntarily suspended when food-service chains told farmers that they didn't want to be accused by activists of selling GMO french fries.

GMO tomatoes with a convenient trait that delays ripening were grown between 1998 and 2002, but cultivation was then suspended. GMO melons capable of resisting a virus have been successfully tested in the U.S. since 1989 but never planted commercially.

It is often reported that roughly 70% of foods in the U.S. contain some ingredients from genetically engineered crops, but most of those ingredients are byproducts such as oil, starch or sweeteners derived from just three GMO crops: soybeans, corn and sugar beets. If the U.S. enacted a mandatory labeling law, the impacts might be surprisingly small. To avoid the stigmatizing labels, food companies could reformulate many of their products, for example by turning to oil from non-GMO corn and soy, or by using non-GMO palm or sunflower oil. Byproducts from GMO corn and soy could then be diverted to industrial or biofuel use.

America's farmers might also find an acceptable workaround. Currently 98% of their soy and 88% of their corn is already employed as feedstock for biofuels or as animal feed, neither of which requires a label. But there would be a large downside in poor countries for moving further along this path.

Developing countries have significant unmet food needs, and GMO food crops are positioned to help. In Asia, poor consumers who currently don't get enough vitamin A from their rice-only diets could be better protected against blindness if their farmers had permission to plant so-called Golden Rice, which has been genetically engineered with high beta-carotene content.

Farmers and consumers in India currently exposed to toxic insecticides when they grow and eat eggplant could reduce their exposure if farmers had access to a GMO eggplant, Bt brinjal, that needs fewer chemical sprays. Farmers and consumers in East Africa currently vulnerable to hunger and destitution when drought hits their maize fields would be more secure if growers had permission to plant GMO drought-resistant varieties of white maize.

But if America, through a labeling system, joins Europe in embracing a new norm against the cultivation of GMO crops for human food, governments in developing countries, already skittish thanks to activist campaigns, will likely follow suit. The result would be a needless setback for the world's poorest and hungriest people.

Mr. Paarlberg is a professor of political science at Wellesley College and the author of "Food Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know" (Oxford, 2010).

Strange, that link didn't work for me either. I googled it and got to it that way.

The World Needs Genetically Modified Foods
By ROBERT PAARLBERG

The Whole Foods grocery chain recently announced its intent by 2018 to require labels on all foods with genetically engineered ingredients. This step was hailed as a game-changer by those campaigning to make such labels a federal requirement. Yet even without mandatory labeling, most genetically modified (or GMO) foods have already been driven out of our supermarkets.

In the EFSA report, which can be read online, you can find (within the scientific wording) that researchers discovered a previously unknown viral gene that is known as ‘Gene VI’. What’s concerning is that not only is the rogue gene found in the most prominent GMO crops and about 63% of GMO traits approved for use (54 out of 86 to be precise), but it can actually disrupt the very biological functions within living organisms. Popular GMO crops such as Roundup-Ready soybeans, NK603, and MON810 corn were found to contain the gene that induces physical mutations. NK603 maize, of course, was also recently linked to the development of mass tumors in rats.
According to Independent Science News, Gene VI also inhibits RNA silencing. As you may know, RNA silencing has been pinpointed as vital for the proper functioning of gene expression when it comes to RNA. Perhaps more topically, it is a defense mechanism against viruses in plants and animals alike. On the contrary, many viruses have developed genes that disable this protective process. Independent Science News reports that the Gene VI is one such gene.
Overall, there is a degree of knowledge on Gene VI. What we do know going by information within the report is that the gene:
Helps to assemble virus particles
Inhibits the natural defense of the cellular system
Produces proteins that are potentially problematic
Makes plants susceptible to bacterial pathogens
All of which are very significant effects that should be studied in depth by an independent team of scientists after GMO products are taken off the market pending further research on the entire array of associated diseases. And that does not even include the effects we are unaware of. http://www.realfarmacy.com/safety-gr...-in-gmo-crops/

05-22-2013, 10:58 AM

Slow Modem

Re: Monsanto GMO products contribute to ccd

What worries me is Monsanto's private army/secret police/storm troopers invading the small farmers.